An Australian License for Princess Jellyfish?

[Just Passing Through]

I loathe the Kaze release of Princess Jellyfish, for reasons too numerous annoying to list here, so I'll just mention that I asked the most likely Australian fit for the show if they wre considering licensing it...

Anyway, Siren Visual gave the tantalising response...

watch this space for upcoming title announcements you might be happy!!!!!!!

Instant purchase for me if/when this happens.

(New members aren't allowed to post links for seven days?)

take "facebook" stick a ".com" on the end add a "sirenvisual" "posts" "406041809459667" stick some slashes in the middle

[Rui]

They must like you to have given an interesting response like that! I have the US version so I'm happy, but the more options the better when there are questionable decisions made with disc authoring. I wish Siren would pick up more new stuff, though.

R

[Just Passing Through]

They must like you to have given an interesting response like that! I have the US version so I'm happy, but the more options the better when there are questionable decisions made with disc authoring. I wish Siren would pick up more new stuff, though.

R

I think they liked the review I gave their Usagi Drop release.

[kaze_andrew]

I loathe the Kaze release of Princess Jellyfish, for reasons too numerous annoying to list here, so I'll just mention that I asked the most likely Australian fit for the show if they wre considering licensing it...

Although busy in many different areas nowadays - this and the Black Lagoon comments concern me.

If you could fire away with a list either here, by DM or email me at andrew DOT partridge AT kaze.fr then I'll look into what I can do to either get answers for why and ideally remedy them in future.

As for the Black Lagoon extras situation - the production teams hands were tied by what the licensor could provide them with. There's a very long set of reasons for that but in short none of the extras were provided in English nor was any offer of supplying them made - which was highly frustrating and is on its way to being fixed for future shows.

Hope this helps and happy to answer anything more in detail. Sorry I've not been around as much for the last while too - there are two huge projects I'm working on outside of Kaze and SLA right now and both I should be able to talk about soon...

Very best,

Andrew

[ilmaestro]

Sorry I've not been around as much for the last while too - there are two huge projects I'm working on outside of Kaze and SLA right now and both I should be able to talk about soon...

Very good of you to sign up to the temporary forums, but now you put us on this cliffhanger!

[kaze_andrew]

Sorry I've not been around as much for the last while too - there are two huge projects I'm working on outside of Kaze and SLA right now and both I should be able to talk about soon...

Very good of you to sign up to the temporary forums, but now you put us on this cliffhanger!

Watch this space - mid-cliffhanger entertainment!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Andrew,
Rumours of his demise are greatly exaggerated.

[ilmaestro]

Now I'm all ears. So to speak.

[reborn!]

Hopefully it's some positive news for Anime On Demand for a change?

[kaze_andrew]

Hopefully it's some positive news for Anime On Demand for a change?

There is definitely that for starters .

Andrew

[Rui]

Since you asked, Andrew (I fancy that Just Passing Through will be forthcoming too)...

I feel that the uneven treatment of foreign anime companies by the contracts they are bound to is incredibly frustrating.

We're in region B for BD, which is an inconvenience necessitating the purchase of dedicated hardware in my case (I'm into other hobbies which would be impossible to enjoy without a region A player), so I'd hoped that it would mean that we wouldn't end up with the short end of the stick this time around while the US is having a terrible time being in region A with Japan. Of course, region locking is a joke to begin with and easily circumvented, but the hysterical panicking we've seen from the Japanese side over US BD releases in recent history implies that on the highest levels, the companies in Japan are taking the situation very seriously this time around. Talking to my dear friends in the Japanese fandom immediately shows that the companies have a case, because when a certain US BD release became available on Amazon Japan, dozens of them started ordering it as quickly as they could. This particular release had a less desirable Japanese BD edition, which couldn't in any way compensate through its meagre extras for the joy of getting it for a fraction of the cost at zero effort.

So, if the regions are the problem with the US wrangling with Japan, surely being trapped in what is, from the perspective of an anime fan, a fairly rubbish region overall should mean we are able to enjoy a respite from some of the harsh licensing requirements the US has faced. I'm largely happy with US BD releases. Until the Persona situation, which is so frustratingly offensive to me that I no longer want to touch any release with the Persona name attached to it at all any more (game or anime), the worst that would happen would be that subtitles are locked to specific language tracks. Some things don't come out on BD at all, but there's still a possibility that they might do later, and I'm happy to be patient if it means getting something good down the line (especially now we have streaming so we don't get completely left behind).

So, setting aside Persona, which you've explained might be a rare case of being in this barren region paying off, I'd expect region B releases (and PAL DVDs) to be at least equal to the quality of US region A (and their region locked DVD) releases. If this was the case and we continued to get interesting, quick releases such as Black Lagoon, I'd be preordering every single one. But whereas in the US, subtitles being locked to language tracks is out of the ordinary and a point of great contention (so much so that NIS America even include the information about whether subtitles will be locked to appease their fans), Kaze releases have them locked as standard. I don't like this, because I am hard of hearing and I understand very well that someone watching the dub might want subtitles. Furthermore, I might want to turn the subtitles off if I'm watching in Japanese. I have a very practical example of this too. I watched Professor Layton (excellent that we had that so much earlier than the US!) with my mother-in-law once. My mother-in-law is not of British birth and she speaks zero Japanese, so we put the English dubbed version on to give her a chance. We wanted to put subtitles on too, because that's how she watches everything at home to follow the dialogue better, and we couldn't, even though the dub and the subtitles both existed on the same disc. In the end we had to keep pausing it to help her keep up. Argh.

It doesn't make any sense, because a casual Japanese buyer isn't going to turn down the option to save £300 in order to avoid having to tolerate a few subtitles at the bottom of the screen. And unless they're physically burned into the video, they can be removed on a computer. So all this accomplishes is inconveniencing dub fans with poor hearing, people who speak English as a second language, and people who simply want a nice version of a product. I could understand why Kaze has to do it if it was commonplace in American releases, but it isn't. Given that we're in a different region, I cannot understand why we have more restrictions than the US does.

Other player restrictions such as the timer clock being frozen on DVD releases don't make any sense to me either. Again, this is something which is almost never done on foreign releases which I buy, only in Europe. Individually these are tiny, incredibly nitpicky things, but when I'm spending money, being given the choice between an effectively perfect edition of something and a version which has niggles, I've come to prefer to spend the money on the best version possible. The price is irrelevant. I thought the Samurai Girls pricing was extremely reasonable, but it turned out to have some subtitle glitches (there was a discussion on the previous forum) which made it come off as inferior to the American release. If anime companies hack the world up into regions like this it's only natural that similar products end up being compared

Of course, if the UK received completely different releases to the US, there'd be less need to compare, and the constraints of the attractiveness of dubs versus their restricted availability means that each region wants to release the same desirable licenses where possible. Princess Jellyfish has a special edition here so I feel both versions exist for a reason, for slightly different types of buyers. One thing I did love about Beez releases was the additional languages they sometimes contained (Polish! Brilliant!), so if the basic specification and contractual stranglehold issues can be dealt with there's definite value a European-created disc should be able to add over a US one.

Anyway, going back to the disc restrictions, using different players and the legitimate discs I paid for - and with the absolute bare minimum of technical research - I can circumvent any restriction that is contractually required by a licensor (short of them actually failing to include content at all). I can force subtitles and audio tracks to play when they are locked, and watch discs from other countries, and do the really unreasonable things like seeing how far through the disc I am when I am watching an episode. All these deliberate flaws in the product accomplish is to annoy the user by introducing additional hoops to jump through which illegitimately obtained anime is not subject to. Buyers are even made fun of by online communities for being crazy enough to pay money for something which is in many cases no better than a stream due to its restrictions. We're reminded by industry reps that we pay less for anime so we need to accept that our versions are inferior -- yet anime series function like monopolies, and in the majority of cases we don't have any option to hand over more money in order to get a better edition. The trend lately for Aniplex to actively restrict UK fans from getting a premium edition is completely illogical, to me. I've become perverse and started wanting the restricted items more just because they don't want me to have nice things. I want nice things. I want to be a statistic in the purchasing figures, voting for nice things rather than hurried releases or locked disc features.

I don't understand what anyone high up in the industry is thinking any more.

To use a rather different non-anime example and attempt to steer it away from being personal, my other half is deeply in love with the One Piece manga. He was importing Shonen Jump USA until it stopped, exclusively to read One Piece and nothing else, and then it went digital-only. He immediately went to sign up for the digital version and found it was impossible. He contacted Viz in Europe who said they weren't planning on making it available. Who is going to bring it to Europe if Viz isn't? And if nobody is, why is the only legal English version being withheld by the companies? Someone somewhere owns the UK digital rights to the series, even if it's still the Japanese side, and we aren't being allowed to pay to see it when the rights are out there and the technology exists.

He could probably still pay to read it by using dubious region-masking techniques and risk throwing his credit card details across some dodgy overseas relay, but when things get to that point just to be allowed to pay for something, it's questionable. This wasn't an issue when things were physically produced since we could throw money at the problem and import a paper edition from whichever region was producing a product. He'd be more than willing to hand the same money to Viz Europe if they set up the service, but they don't seem to want to, so as a result he has no One Piece at all until the significantly slower collected volumes are published and ends up feeling sidelined and disenfranchised by an industry which constantly laments its shrinking fanbase.

As a consumer, it's extraordinarily difficult to understand why things always have to be this way when I have a wallet full of money and a desire to own a lot of nice anime releases. My faith in the industry is at the wobbliest it has ever been and I've just given up and switched to buying directly from Japan in many cases because I want every penny I spend on my hobby to go towards the least crippled versions possible.

I'm sorry for complaining, Andrew, because you are easily the most accessible and well-intentioned rep around and you're doing brilliant work with things like the film roadshows and answering questions (and I still attribute the fact that I am lucky enough to own The Tatami Galaxy with English subtitles entirely to your hard work). And none of the things I find annoying are actually your fault. I just wish that some common sense would enter into the equation somehow at a high level before the anime industry keeps burning its bridges with the people who want to buy their stuff :s

Sorry also for rambling. This entire post might make no sense when I look at it again in the morning.

R

[kaze_andrew]

Since you asked, Andrew (I fancy that Just Passing Through will be forthcoming too)...

Wouldn't have asked if I didn't want an answer . Can't fix anything if you don't understand the roots of it after all!

I feel that the uneven treatment of foreign anime companies by the contracts they are bound to is incredibly frustrating.

We're in region B for BD, which is an inconvenience necessitating the purchase of dedicated hardware in my case (I'm into other hobbies which would be impossible to enjoy without a region A player), so I'd hoped that it would mean that we wouldn't end up with the short end of the stick this time around while the US is having a terrible time being in region A with Japan. Of course, region locking is a joke to begin with and easily circumvented, but the hysterical panicking we've seen from the Japanese side over US BD releases in recent history implies that on the highest levels, the companies in Japan are taking the situation very seriously this time around. Talking to my dear friends in the Japanese fandom immediately shows that the companies have a case, because when a certain US BD release became available on Amazon Japan, dozens of them started ordering it as quickly as they could. This particular release had a less desirable Japanese BD edition, which couldn't in any way compensate through its meagre extras for the joy of getting it for a fraction of the cost at zero effort.

So, if the regions are the problem with the US wrangling with Japan, surely being trapped in what is, from the perspective of an anime fan, a fairly rubbish region overall should mean we are able to enjoy a respite from some of the harsh licensing requirements the US has faced. I'm largely happy with US BD releases. Until the Persona situation, which is so frustratingly offensive to me that I no longer want to touch any release with the Persona name attached to it at all any more (game or anime), the worst that would happen would be that subtitles are locked to specific language tracks. Some things don't come out on BD at all, but there's still a possibility that they might do later, and I'm happy to be patient if it means getting something good down the line (especially now we have streaming so we don't get completely left behind).

Firstly I am with you on region codes being a joke - however the issue of the day we are facing is a pretty unfair one too. Firstly because we take UK licenses and many US companies want UK rights too nowadays for cost reasons (it's a tough time for everyone, bonus territories mean better profits) you tend to be hit with restrictions.

Take Persona 4 for example - every licensor has to obey a X month holdback on releasing after the US version is out. The only reason we are not losing out to counter-import from fans who quite rightly want a version as soon as it's ready is because of the lack of Japanese on the BD now in the USA.

Black Lagoon is a weird one for everyone as an example as contractually it was impossible to get the extras and even if pushed I doubt Funimation would have been allowed to issue them (long story again but it was a worldwide issue with a licensor that everyone has been fixing slowly).

So, setting aside Persona, which you've explained might be a rare case of being in this barren region paying off, I'd expect region B releases (and PAL DVDs) to be at least equal to the quality of US region A (and their region locked DVD) releases. If this was the case and we continued to get interesting, quick releases such as Black Lagoon, I'd be preordering every single one. But whereas in the US, subtitles being locked to language tracks is out of the ordinary and a point of great contention (so much so that NIS America even include the information about whether subtitles will be locked to appease their fans), Kaze releases have them locked as standard. I don't like this, because I am hard of hearing and I understand very well that someone watching the dub might want subtitles. Furthermore, I might want to turn the subtitles off if I'm watching in Japanese. I have a very practical example of this too. I watched Professor Layton (excellent that we had that so much earlier than the US!) with my mother-in-law once. My mother-in-law is not of British birth and she speaks zero Japanese, so we put the English dubbed version on to give her a chance. We wanted to put subtitles on too, because that's how she watches everything at home to follow the dialogue better, and we couldn't, even though the dub and the subtitles both existed on the same disc. In the end we had to keep pausing it to help her keep up. Argh.

I see the issue precisely there, I suspect it boils down to the in-house authoring used but I will flag that as it is a real accessibility issue that should not be happening. In the old days at Beez I used to QC every disc too - since I am based out of the UK now though this is much harder to do so don't get a chance until it comes out or I'd have flagged this sooner internally too.

Very sorry for the issue there too - it's no light issue that one.

It doesn't make any sense, because a casual Japanese buyer isn't going to turn down the option to save £300 in order to avoid having to tolerate a few subtitles at the bottom of the screen. And unless they're physically burned into the video, they can be removed on a computer. So all this accomplishes is inconveniencing dub fans with poor hearing, people who speak English as a second language, and people who simply want a nice version of a product. I could understand why Kaze has to do it if it was commonplace in American releases, but it isn't. Given that we're in a different region, I cannot understand why we have more restrictions than the US does.

It's true there is a more prevalent rise in locking subtitles to keep counter importation down at the licensor request - I understand both sides of the line on that point but as I say I suspect the issue is more an accidental one in authoring that can be fixed. What companies are doing to stop importation (or contractually do their duty to hinder it) more figures into hardcoding the subs to the video. That will become a more common thing in the US in the next year too I suspect.

Other player restrictions such as the timer clock being frozen on DVD releases don't make any sense to me either. Again, this is something which is almost never done on foreign releases which I buy, only in Europe. Individually these are tiny, incredibly nitpicky things, but when I'm spending money, being given the choice between an effectively perfect edition of something and a version which has niggles, I've come to prefer to spend the money on the best version possible. The price is irrelevant. I thought the Samurai Girls pricing was extremely reasonable, but it turned out to have some subtitle glitches (there was a discussion on the previous forum) which made it come off as inferior to the American release. If anime companies hack the world up into regions like this it's only natural that similar products end up being compared

Timer being frozen is a mystery to me - but it happens with a lot of European releases? Honestly not sure on that one but I can ask about it and see what our authoring team says as it strikes me as bizarre too.

Subtitle glitches were due to the received format - I must have missed that thread or I'd have replied sooner but you are 100% right. If you're paying you should receive the best product imaginable and I am exceptionally sorry this has not been the case in KAZE's first few products to the market in the UK. I've not been involved as much as I'd like on an operational level of this and it seems like I should try to for sure.

Of course, if the UK received completely different releases to the US, there'd be less need to compare, and the constraints of the attractiveness of dubs versus their restricted availability means that each region wants to release the same desirable licenses where possible. Princess Jellyfish has a special edition here so I feel both versions exist for a reason, for slightly different types of buyers. One thing I did love about Beez releases was the additional languages they sometimes contained (Polish! Brilliant!), so if the basic specification and contractual stranglehold issues can be dealt with there's definite value a European-created disc should be able to add over a US one.

Couldn't agree any more on this front and it was always one of the guiding things at Beez that you should aim to add somehow even just in packaging quality.

Anyway, going back to the disc restrictions, using different players and the legitimate discs I paid for - and with the absolute bare minimum of technical research - I can circumvent any restriction that is contractually required by a licensor (short of them actually failing to include content at all). I can force subtitles and audio tracks to play when they are locked, and watch discs from other countries, and do the really unreasonable things like seeing how far through the disc I am when I am watching an episode. All these deliberate flaws in the product accomplish is to annoy the user by introducing additional hoops to jump through which illegitimately obtained anime is not subject to. Buyers are even made fun of by online communities for being crazy enough to pay money for something which is in many cases no better than a stream due to its restrictions. We're reminded by industry reps that we pay less for anime so we need to accept that our versions are inferior -- yet anime series function like monopolies, and in the majority of cases we don't have any option to hand over more money in order to get a better edition. The trend lately for Aniplex to actively restrict UK fans from getting a premium edition is completely illogical, to me. I've become perverse and started wanting the restricted items more just because they don't want me to have nice things. I want nice things. I want to be a statistic in the purchasing figures, voting for nice things rather than hurried releases or locked disc features.

I don't understand what anyone high up in the industry is thinking any more.

You and me both on the understanding front - the restriction for premium editions from AoA just now comes from their desire not to impinge on their relationship with UK licensees like Manga UK and MVM though. As they sell all rights for the UK to companies it would be a huge shift in model to start selling directly and impact on the entire way they do business.

The fact you pay less than Japan does not mean you should have to accept an inferior product where it matters, that attitude really annoys me. I think you can expect for less money - lower quality packaging than Japan (some of their releases make my mouth water though), but that is where it should end. Even then I want to see a day where you get the happy medium of a model like NIS in terms of quality in fact.

To use a rather different non-anime example and attempt to steer it away from being personal, my other half is deeply in love with the One Piece manga. He was importing Shonen Jump USA until it stopped, exclusively to read One Piece and nothing else, and then it went digital-only. He immediately went to sign up for the digital version and found it was impossible. He contacted Viz in Europe who said they weren't planning on making it available. Who is going to bring it to Europe if Viz isn't? And if nobody is, why is the only legal English version being withheld by the companies? Someone somewhere owns the UK digital rights to the series, even if it's still the Japanese side, and we aren't being allowed to pay to see it when the rights are out there and the technology exists.

The issue there being Viz Europe do not manage manga for the UK - Viz California does that so it's them you need to pressure as we're not allowed to touch the UK for it. It's a myriad of issues I gather but I am 100% with you on this one.

He could probably still pay to read it by using dubious region-masking techniques and risk throwing his credit card details across some dodgy overseas relay, but when things get to that point just to be allowed to pay for something, it's questionable. This wasn't an issue when things were physically produced since we could throw money at the problem and import a paper edition from whichever region was producing a product. He'd be more than willing to hand the same money to Viz Europe if they set up the service, but they don't seem to want to, so as a result he has no One Piece at all until the significantly slower collected volumes are published and ends up feeling sidelined and disenfranchised by an industry which constantly laments its shrinking fanbase.

As a consumer, it's extraordinarily difficult to understand why things always have to be this way when I have a wallet full of money and a desire to own a lot of nice anime releases. My faith in the industry is at the wobbliest it has ever been and I've just given up and switched to buying directly from Japan in many cases because I want every penny I spend on my hobby to go towards the least crippled versions possible.

Then clearly I am going to have to work super hard to fix that wherever I am working just now or in the future to rebuild that as I can 100% see where you are coming from and I'm certain you are not the only one who feels that way. I guess I have a long road ahead to rebuild that faith in the industry here but I'll do my best to do so again .

I'm sorry for complaining, Andrew, because you are easily the most accessible and well-intentioned rep around and you're doing brilliant work with things like the film roadshows and answering questions (and I still attribute the fact that I am lucky enough to own The Tatami Galaxy with English subtitles entirely to your hard work). And none of the things I find annoying are actually your fault. I just wish that some common sense would enter into the equation somehow at a high level before the anime industry keeps burning its bridges with the people who want to buy their stuff :s

You don't ever need to apologize - this is exactly the kind of thing I need to know if I'm going to craft releases that meet everyone's expectations in future and gives everyone a reason to buy UK product again instead of importing. It's never going to be a short or easy process but I'm definitely going to see what can be done.

On a base level common sense should feature in - so I'll see what can be done. Can't make any short term promises but you've certainly been heard loud and clear . Sorry for the delay replying too!

Andrew

[Rui]

I wish everyone in the industry was like you, Andrew!

Regarding the timer thing, if I play, say, my (Kaze) Vampire Knight discs on my UK DVD player, the DVD player display, which normally shows that I'm x minutes into the show, has a blank screen. It seems to be an authoring decision but it doesn't seem to make any sense. JustPa sees more Kaze releases than I do in his position as an active reviewer for other websites and he's mentioned it a few times too. Again, it's not exactly a dealbreaking flaw, but it is sort of annoying not to know where in the disc I am when I'm used to discs which display it!

If I am to get into other niggles with UK discs I've had (and this is far from just being a Kaze thing now), common complaints I've experienced personally or heard secondhand on forums are missing chapter stops compared to overseas editions, dodgy quality control for critical functionality (this is a Manga thing rather than a Kaze thing, most obviously with the Panty and Stocking situation but far from limited to it!), and unnecessary visual/audio quality dips compared to the US versions (Tind had a thread on the main forum about this and was told off by Manga UK for having brought it up on Twitter, discouragingly).

I also don't like in principle French content being hidden behind a French menu on the discs as I'm comfortably multilingual and find the extra content interesting (and indeed I'm more than happy to buy the French version directly for the same reason on occasion, though this is obviously not true of all fans). Since it can easily be circumvented though, this is not a big deal. It's more a gripe on the underlying philosophy behind hiding things away from customers than on the outcome.

If you can do for UK releases what NISA is doing for the US, I'll be thrilled; I buy every NISA release which comes out because they're doing a nice job balanced between the niche market they've identified and remaining on the border of affordability for series I might have passed on with the Aniplex model. Since their deluxe releases often seem to sell out, and we've seen premium UK releases sell out too in the past, having that same model working here (with perfect discs!) would be something to be proud of.

Edit: I was rereading and noted again the part about Aniplex USA's outrageous restrictions being intended to sweeten the deal for UK distributors (I have been suspecting as much for a while). Thinking that has made me quite upset over the last few months and especially unwilling to buy the weaker local versions. Normally, I'd have jumped at the sub-only Blue Exorcist release from Manga UK, but I'd already started buying a version which I knew was technically problem-free, not converted to PAL, and came with posters/slipcases/reversible covers. It wouldn't make any sense to switch to the local version when cost wasn't a factor and as I have no local shops which sell DVDs any more, there's no added value from the local release at all - there's only reduced value because the discs and packaging are worse. But Aniplex is trying to force me to accept the reduced value and reduce any need for competitiveness in terms of quality between regions. This kind of attitude is not helpful to the industry. And the UK companies end up looking bad and suffering too even if it's Aniplex USA who are openly creating the situation ^^;

Also, I have passed on your advice about Viz California to my husband and they can expect a strongly worded letter

I can understand them being reticent to get mixed up with the manga industries in France/Germany etc, but there's an obvious natural language barrier anyway, and since they own the rights for the UK and have the English translation available, and they even have an infrastructure in place for selling digital manga on iOS in the UK for compiled volumes, they're just throwing money away by refusing to sell us Shonen Jump Alpha :s

R

[Titan]

I watched Professor Layton (excellent that we had that so much earlier than the US!) with my mother-in-law once. My mother-in-law is not of British birth and she speaks zero Japanese, so we put the English dubbed version on to give her a chance. We wanted to put subtitles on too, because that's how she watches everything at home to follow the dialogue better, and we couldn't, even though the dub and the subtitles both existed on the same disc. In the end we had to keep pausing it to help her keep up. Argh.

I'm guessing you have the DVD version.

I'm curious because I have the Blu-ray version and the subtitles can be turned on and off while watching the english dub.

Regarding the timer thing, if I play, say, my (Kaze) Vampire Knight discs on my UK DVD player, the DVD player display, which normally shows that I'm x minutes into the show, has a blank screen.

Just tested my Vampire Knight DVD’s and both my DVD and Blu-ray players displays the timer. Maybe it’s a issue with certain players?

[Rui]

I'm guessing you have the DVD version.

I'm curious because I have the Blu-ray version and the subtitles can be turned on and off while watching the english dub.

You're right (I avoided the BD because I didn't want to buy a local player for a single disc back then). Good to hear that the issue is fixed in that version, though I hear it's back again for some others even on BD.

Just tested my Vampire Knight DVD’s and both my DVD and Blu-ray players displays the timer. Maybe it’s a issue with certain players?

I believe players can override it, sort of like how my player can override 'locked' startup screens and adverts on discs, but the timer issue seems to elude my high end (if old) standalone completely.

R

[ayase]

That's all very interesting Andrew, thanks for taking the time to answer those questions so comprehensively. I think Rui did a good job of asking a lot of things I had wondered about myself (and some I hadn't).

Another point, if you'll indulge me - I remember one of the first posts I addressed to you on AUKN a long time ago was regarding the issue of US/UK pricing discrepancy, particularly in cases when the content was more or less the same. I used the example of Cowboy Bebop - at the time, the UK release from Beez was in two sets of three discs, each retailing for around £35. I didn't really have any problem paying that for Bebop, and I did. But soon after I had bought it, the release of the US Anime Legends set (which at the time could be imported for >£20) made me question why anyone in their right mind would buy the local release, and how licensors / distributors / whoever makes these decisions ever allowed such a state of affairs to come about. It was frustrating for fans who wanted to support the UK industry but couldn't justify paying three times as much for content with worse audio, and I'm sure it was just as frustrating for Beez who would undoubtedly lose sales to imports. Eventually of course, we got our own Anime Legends releases here in the UK which was excellent. Beez's policy of both premium releases for newer shows and budget releases for older ones seemed like a real step in the right direction to my mind and competitive with the US in almost every way.

Fast forward to today however, and we will soon have a situation exactly analogous to that of the Bebop situation - I'm talking about Black Lagoon on Blu-ray. I was overjoyed to hear that not only would Black Lagoon be available in the UK again, but would be available in HD. Fantastic, "One up on the Yanks for a change" I thought. Consider it pre-ordered. £30 a series? That's what I paid to collect the singles from MVM, no problem. Others will bitch and moan about that price, but not me. And then, less than a month after it is released in Europe comes the news of the upcoming US release, its double play format and most shatteringly of all, its price. Words could not describe how fast and how hard my jaw hit the floor. That has pretty much put me off pre-ordering anything which is out in the UK first, for ever. I would love to support local releases, but once again, I find myself in a situation where there is no way I can justify paying almost double for a release which has nothing more to offer me except language options I'll never use. Perhaps if it had come in really nice packaging with some physical extras like a book. But as it stands, I'm afraid I won't be able to support Kaze's releases if we're returning the kind of price and features discrepancies of the past. I know you work hard to deliver for the UK anime community and that this most likely is not your fault, but I have to tell it like I see it and think it's important that I do.

What companies are doing to stop importation (or contractually do their duty to hinder it) more figures into hardcoding the subs to the video. That will become a more common thing in the US in the next year too I suspect.

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[Just Passing Through]

Andrew, I've just sent you an e-mail...

[kaze_andrew]

That's all very interesting Andrew, thanks for taking the time to answer those questions so comprehensively. I think Rui did a good job of asking a lot of things I had wondered about myself (and some I hadn't).

Another point, if you'll indulge me - I remember one of the first posts I addressed to you on AUKN a long time ago was regarding the issue of US/UK pricing discrepancy, particularly in cases when the content was more or less the same. I used the example of Cowboy Bebop - at the time, the UK release from Beez was in two sets of three discs, each retailing for around £35. I didn't really have any problem paying that for Bebop, and I did. But soon after I had bought it, the release of the US Anime Legends set (which at the time could be imported for >£20) made me question why anyone in their right mind would buy the local release, and how licensors / distributors / whoever makes these decisions ever allowed such a state of affairs to come about. It was frustrating for fans who wanted to support the UK industry but couldn't justify paying three times as much for content with worse audio, and I'm sure it was just as frustrating for Beez who would undoubtedly lose sales to imports. Eventually of course, we got our own Anime Legends releases here in the UK which was excellent. Beez's policy of both premium releases for newer shows and budget releases for older ones seemed like a real step in the right direction to my mind and competitive with the US in almost every way.

This is a model I would like to see supported again really - be it with Kaze or anyone else actually too. There is a place for a premium release followed by a cheaper one in good course for older shows - but that's in part my own opinion just.

Fast forward to today however, and we will soon have a situation exactly analogous to that of the Bebop situation - I'm talking about Black Lagoon on Blu-ray. I was overjoyed to hear that not only would Black Lagoon be available in the UK again, but would be available in HD. Fantastic, "One up on the Yanks for a change" I thought. Consider it pre-ordered. £30 a series? That's what I paid to collect the singles from MVM, no problem. Others will bitch and moan about that price, but not me. And then, less than a month after it is released in Europe comes the news of the upcoming US release, its double play format and most shatteringly of all, its price. Words could not describe how fast and how hard my jaw hit the floor. That has pretty much put me off pre-ordering anything which is out in the UK first, for ever. I would love to support local releases, but once again, I find myself in a situation where there is no way I can justify paying almost double for a release which has nothing more to offer me except language options I'll never use. Perhaps if it had come in really nice packaging with some physical extras like a book. But as it stands, I'm afraid I won't be able to support Kaze's releases if we're returning the kind of price and features discrepancies of the past. I know you work hard to deliver for the UK anime community and that this most likely is not your fault, but I have to tell it like I see it and think it's important that I do.

I think it's important to say how it is really - so don't worry there - I'd worry more the day you start lying to me just to get rid of me from the post or such ! You may see more price discrepancies but it will be with as many if not more features and packaging in future too instead of the opposite.

Keep in mind that unlike Beez - Kaze hadn't had me kicking away at the model from the day of single volume releases for titles followed by super high box sets etc. So it's taken a while to get them to think in a UK mentality for releases I am afraid to say but they are getting there now - if they don't go straight to half sets they'll offer other value instead vs what is available in Japan, if it's more money they will offer better packaging.

My biggest concern to focus on is ensuring the audio and subtitle issues are fixed however as these are unacceptable for everyone and should be resolved. I can only express the deepest apologies for that too - it shouldn't happen but clearly has so I will look what can be done to fix it.

Price will always remain an issue given the $ vs £ rate and that prices have to be kept similar to their € counterparts due to counter-importation on Amazon.fr (ironically this is as much of a worry usually as US -> UK).

What companies are doing to stop importation (or contractually do their duty to hinder it) more figures into hardcoding the subs to the video. That will become a more common thing in the US in the next year too I suspect.

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You don't have to say a word, I know just what you mean.

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Andrew

[Just Passing Through]

With the main forum offline, I can't recall exactly what I posted, but while the discrepancy between the US and UK pricing for Black Lagoon BD does rankle, I think that my first reaction to the Funimation price announcement was disbelief. I remember thinking that it was a misprice on TRSI and that it would be soon corrected.

$55 dollars for 24 episodes on DVD and Blu-ray is ridiculously cheap. It's as if they expect it to fly off the shelves, and expect economies of scale to kick in. Compare that to their Serial Experiments Lain pricing which, because it has that lush 320 page artbook, is still reasonable at $90 for 13 episodes. Back then I would have expected Black Lagoon BD to retail at $100, and I'm still shocked that it is so cheap.

It isn't that Kaze's release is too expensive, it's that Funimation's pricing devalues Kaze's release in comparison. After all, the twelve or thirteen ep BD sets we have seen in the UK have typically started at £35 RRP, and to match that US pricing, Black Lagoon would have to be RRP'd at £20, which is patently ridiculous.

[Rui]

Yeah, nobody is going to win on pricing with the US involved. They have more people and more economies of scale even in a tiny niche market, and Kaze have extra costs involved with the BBFC and our hefty VAT on top of this. Funimation and co can throw their weight around as much as they want to because when it comes to English-speaking territories, the US seems to be seen as the region Japan wants to impress most of all. The only way any UK company is going to beat or equal deals like the US Black Lagoon is to devalue their product so far nobody will buy it in the first place.

I think a large part of the comparison issue is that everyone is fighting over the same pie a lot of the time. Especially now that dubs are becoming a premium item in their own right, everyone on both sides of the Atlantic is grabbing the hottest properties. Black Lagoon is an obviously desirable title to have; it immediately appeals to the more 'underground' side of the fandom by being saucy, violent and not too Japanese, and any company who wants to make money is obviously going to want to get it out in a market like the UK for people to enjoy. I can easily see people who don't normally buy anime picking it up for a fun alcohol-enhanced evening at home.

So while the big shows are always going to clash, licensing shows nobody else is currently releasing at all would mean the company is free from the comparison problem. Siren in Australia seem to have been making this their entire business model for a while, and as a result I've ended up ordering a bunch of stuff from them. Their releases aren't perfect but when they're the only people peddling interesting shows such as Kuuchuu Buranko, Dennou Coil and the hotly desired sequel(s?) to Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, they get all of the business regardless. Topically, the previously mentioned Professor Layton seemed to be a successful release with no US equivalent for a long time and indeed, even grumpy old Rui ran out and bought it here.

However, I don't know what the sales were like for UK releases which had no overseas English-translated competitor, whereas the companies certainly do. Perhaps they are unspectacular due to the lack of a dub which would generally be necessary, and this is futile

There are a few of us who are more than happy to nip to Amazon France and spend my money there *nudge nudge wink wink*, if Kaze feel like popping a subtitle track on some of their tastier licenses which don't have a dub or for some reason can't support the UK market (e.g. really old stuff that the French have a nostalgic link to which wouldn't sell over here). There's no need to even market them here or risk the ire of the BBFC, as we'll find them, I promise.

I bought the French Kara No Kyoukai set just for the soundtracks that way, and very nice it is too. I know for the extra 10 completely under-the-radar sales that it would lead to, it's not worth creating entirely new subtitles and increasing the complexity of license negotiations, but in those cases where subtitle tracks already exist it from streaming it would be awesome to have that as a channel to increase the number of legitimately available new series in the English-speaking world without having to deal with cannibalisation from other English-speaking regions. I'm more than happy to pay French prices.

R

[ayase]

It isn't that Kaze's release is too expensive, it's that Funimation's pricing devalues Kaze's release in comparison. After all, the twelve or thirteen ep BD sets we have seen in the UK have typically started at £35 RRP, and to match that US pricing, Black Lagoon would have to be RRP'd at £20, which is patently ridiculous.

Yeah, like I said, it's not that I consider the EU release too expensive, simply that the discrepancy makes it virtually impossible to justify purchasing over the US release. Thanks for your reply Andrew, I wasn't really expecting any answers, but to know that my thoughts have at least been read by someone in the industry makes me feel a little better.

Once again, I present my dream region code / licensing area:
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[fabio de lunatico]

My faith in the industry is at the wobbliest it has ever been and I've just given up and switched to buying directly from Japan in many cases because I want every penny I spend on my hobby to go towards the least crippled versions possible.

And in doing so, of course, give tacit approval to the Japanese licensors for all of those things you complain about in your post (read the whole thing, I did). I know that's not your intention, but it amounts to the same thing. Right now the Japanese are trying to work how they can get as many foreign fans buying Japanese Blu-rays as possible without completely alienating the rest.

But if Japan does take this gimping of foreign Blu-ray releases to its logical conclusion (burned-in subtitles, more dub-only releases, simply withholding Blu-ray rights altogether), then I'm mostly done with buying anime.

[Rui]

And in doing so, of course, give tacit approval to the Japanese licensors for all of those things you complain about in your post (read the whole thing, I did). I know that's not your intention, but it amounts to the same thing. Right now the Japanese are trying to work how they can get as many foreign fans buying Japanese Blu-rays as possible without completely alienating the rest.

But if Japan does take this gimping of foreign Blu-ray releases to its logical conclusion (burned-in subtitles, more dub-only releases, simply withholding Blu-ray rights altogether), then I'm mostly done with buying anime.

I'm aware that it can be taken that way, but simply dropping my favourite hobby is not something I am willing to do.

If the local companies aren't providing a product I want, either by supporting unfair restrictions in availability or quality, the more forward-thinking of the Japanese companies are welcome to all of my money. Those who put out amazing premium items or include English subtitles on their discs are first in line. If the only way to have ungimped local releases is to pay Japanese prices, fine. What I don't want is for them to irrationally decide to also try to make it harder for us to buy the Japanese editions in one of their fits of strange logic because we keep presenting ourselves as being more trouble to deal with than our market is worth...

I also don't see the Japanese companies as the bad guys alone in this. They're taking feedback from the local distributors and making decisions based on what they are told to some extent - if a company in one region is telling them they won't pay top dollar for a show when there's a competing product in another region, that company is partially culpable for the restrictions we end up suffering as a result. If a company in one region is accepting terrible restrictions for their customers, the Japanese negotiators will wonder whether they can pull the same trick in others. I see everyone in the relationship as part of the problem. Why are companies being screwed over with unfair restrictions in one region and not in another, with the same titles? The thing I found most soul destroying when reading the Manga UK Twitter account when people used to post excerpts from it was that every time a fan reported a problem to the company, they'd just complain. Not once did anything seem to be improving. All discussion ended immediately with a "this is the way it is, too bad" and again and again they'd put out unchecked, messed up discs.

Price (when it's used in a trade off for quality) stopped having any particular relevance to me a long time ago. Even more so nowadays with streaming since I can still see some things without bankrupting myself or cheating anyone. I don't have infinite cash, but I do have a heck of a lot of discs I can go back to at any time, and I can live with buying fewer titles each month for an increase in quality.

My ideal release format as things stand would be for everything to be like Gundam UC. I know this isn't a popular view and its comparatively high prices upset people (not to mention the dawn of that release model being pretty much responsible for killing Beez, who were my favourite UK company), but getting a premium OAV at exactly the same time as Japan with [almost] all of the same bells and whistles, and available over here with minimal difficulty and no QC problems? I'm there. NISA is doing a good job too on a much more generally affordable level, and as I said earlier I automatically order every single thing they pick up nowadays. It helps that they have excellent taste.

I'd rather have fewer things, which don't suck, than more things while being treated poorly. Buying local has become acceptance of being treated poorly just as much as buying from Japan has, and I'm glad to at least have more hope now than I did a couple of days ago.

R

[vashdaman]

I'd probably import more, but import tax on stuff outside the Europe is brutal. I got a letter from Fed Ex today reminding me that if I don't pay them £15.80 there will be "further action taken". It feels like I just got threatened by the mob. I'm not even entirely sure why I owe them that. Its a scary business importing.

[ayase]

I also don't see the Japanese companies as the bad guys alone in this. They're taking feedback from the local distributors and making decisions based on what they are told to some extent - if a company in one region is telling them they won't pay top dollar for a show when there's a competing product in another region, that company is partially culpable for the restrictions we end up suffering as a result.

Is that not what you'd do if you were running a localised distribution company though? It's sure as hell what I'd do. But then it's probably just as well I'm not in charge of an anime distributor. I don't imagine I'd be very good at negotiating with the Japanese full stop, since I tend to be of the school of thought of "If you can't get someone to concede to your demands by stubbornly refusing to meet theirs, it's probably not worth dealing with them at all". I imagine I'd just give up and do something else.

[Rui]

Well, if you knew that there was a competing, better product coming in another region, there's the question of whether it actually makes any sense to release a later, inferior version at all. Unless it's something like Naruto/Bleach/Akira which will definitely sell like hotcakes even if every import-capable citizen ignores the release ^^;

It's not like there's a shortage of appealing, completely unlicensed gems. According to fan lore (so taken with a small pinch of salt), Dennou Coil wasn't available for licensing anywhere in English until Siren nagged incessantly, and as a result of their general assertiveness they have certainly caught our eyes now.

R

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